


Roses

by conceptofzero



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-21
Updated: 2010-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-13 22:29:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/conceptofzero/pseuds/conceptofzero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"They have an apartment downtown." Snowman and Boxcars's attempts at a normal romance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Roses

**Author's Note:**

> I was asked to write some Boxcars/Snowman, and this is what came out. NOTE: this story contains content that may be triggery but doesn't fall under the archive warnings. Check the [LJ version](http://conceptofzero.livejournal.com/19164.html) to see the warning if you're worried and don't mind being spoiled.

They have an apartment downtown.

Boxcars knows it's stupid. Most days, it stays empty and unused. They pay a girl to go in and clean it once a week, to air out the rooms and make sure it's always free of dust and dirt. It would be cheaper just to rent a hotel room for the night, to pay by the hour.

But that's not what this is. It isn't about hotel rooms. It isn't just sex.

They meet whenever they can, writing messages to one another in the classified ads of the local paper. Her usual message can always be found near the bottom of the page, hidden among the Seeking section. "Coffin Nail cigarettes" it says, followed by a fake phone number. It's just the time and date with a few extra digits thrown in. She usually makes the first move, and anytime he writes a message of his own, there's an even chance she won't show and he'll spend the evening eating alone, hoping that every person he hears moving through the halls is her.

He always arrives early with a bag full of groceries and flowers. Boxcars fills the empty fridge until it looks more like a home and less like an empty place, and then goes around the apartment, opening the windows one by one until the fresh air and sun pour inside. He usually waits by the west window, looking out across the city he helped build. It may be Slick's city, but it's also Boxcar's too. He helped make this place real and shaped it until it became a sparkling jewel in the middle of the desert.

Boxcars hears the familiar click of her key as it unlocks the door. He turns away from the window, just in time to see her walk through the door. She takes her hat off as she shuts the door and smiles at Boxcars, and he remembers that she's worth all the trouble and sneaking around.

They meet in the middle of the room, Snowman throwing her arms around his neck and Boxcars wrapping them around her waist. She's the only woman who's ever come close to him in height and he lifts her up off the floor, swinging her around in a circle. Snowman laughs, her voice deep and throaty, and smacks him on the arm when he sets her down, "Stop it."

"You like it," He leans in for a kiss and she meets him part-way, just melting against him. Boxcars would kiss her all day if he could, all too happy to just lose himself in her warm, soft mouth. Their kisses aren't frantic, but they make each one count, trying to pack as much meaning as they can into them just in case this is the last time they get a chance to do this.

He hangs her coat up with his and they get to work in the kitchen, making dinner together. This is the reason they have an apartment, the reason they set times when they know they've got the whole evening to themselves. In the beginning, when it was just sex, they used hotel rooms without a second thought. But it wasn't enough, and it isn't now. He's not the sort of a man to like hotel rooms and the way they make everything seem cheap and sleazy, especially the sex. Boxcars can live without sex in a relationship. He can't live without the relationship.

What he wants, more than anything in the world, is this: making dinner with her, moving in unison as they hand each other knives and pots and ingredients. He peels the potatoes while she chops up the vegetables, and they talk about things. Nothing about work, or about the fellas they work with, just about... stuff. Music they've been listening to, movies they're showing down at the cinema, books that they pulled out of the desert. Stuff. Pointless, meaningless conversation, the kind of things that regular couples have.

He never thought about her much on Derse. Yeah, he knew who she was, 'cause everybody knew who the Queen was. But he only really thought about her when Slick was going on about her. It was only after coming here, after changing his name for something else and becoming a new sorta man did he notice that maybe she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, and maybe she was the only woman who's ever been able to look him in the eye without stretching up on her toes.

While they wait for dinner to finish cooking, they end up making out in the kitchen, Snowman pressed up against the fridge while Boxcars reminds her of all the reasons she loves him. He is never happier than he is in these moments, his mouth moving in time with hers as they lazily kiss. There's no hurry, no Slick breathing down his neck and threatening to come around any corner, no Doc Scratch lecturing her on why this entire relationship is inappropriate. There's just her and him, and her soft sweet mouth and his hands on her curves.

The first time they slept together, they were both drunk, and it was over relatively quickly. It was only after she walked out the door that he realized how much he wished she would stay, even if for a few more minutes. The more often they slept together, throw-away moments in washrooms and alley ways, and later cheap hotel rooms, the more he wished he could have just a bit more time. And one day, he realized that he wasn't the only one who wanted more time.

Dinner is soup and fresh bread, and they eat at their little kitchen table. He always insists on lighting a few candles, and she smiles and leans in to smell the fresh roses he's brought. Boxcars always cuts the thorns off before she arrives, just so she'll never cut her thumb on them by accident. Maybe it's a metaphor, but he's never been good with them. In here though, in this apartment, he'll do anything he can to keep her safe and happy.

They never talk about work. Never. Outside the apartment, they've got to be rivals. They need to do what their respective leaders tell them to do, and that means fight. That means they can't go soft on one another. He's got scars from her on the outside. Boxcars never asks for an apology and he knows better than to get one, but sometimes, when they're curled up in bed, she presses her lips overtop the marks and kisses them one by one, in the order they were given to him. He's yet to hurt her physically, but he's said things when Slick's standing there. She never asks for an apology, and he never gives it either, except when he tells her over and over again about how much he loves her.

She just smiles and twirls a rose between her fingertips, inhaling deeply as she presses it to her nose. Snowman never says the words as often as he does. Boxcars doesn't push it. He understands. It's easy for him to say it. It's easy, because he never gets to say it to her anywhere but here, in their little apartment with the cream coloured walls. She rarely says it, but he can read it in her eyes and her smile, in the casual way she rubs her feet against his under the table, in the way she teases him about cooking.

They leave the dishes for later and turn on the radio, Boxcars hunting through stations until he finds something not too fast but not too slow. The music plays, and they dance around the living room, slowly turning in circles around the furniture. Snowman lies her head against his chest and he clutches the universe to his breast, feeling her heart beat so softly beneath his hands.

He used to wonder if he was just a replacement for her dead husband. Boxcars knows it isn't true. She isn't using him. Her words may be sparse, but when she says she loves him, he knows that she really means them. When she lays her head against his chest and closes her eyes, he knows that she's thinking about him instead of somebody else. If they didn't have to hide their relationship, maybe they'd have fights over that, or spend their time bickering. But there's no time for fights, not when their hours together are so limited. The last thing Boxcars wants to do is have her leave here thinking he's mad at her, especially when it may be the last thing he ever says to her. So he presses a kiss to her forehead and holds her close, pretending for just a little while that they're normal people with a normal relationship.

Eventually, the time comes for them to leave. Some days he gets lucky and she can stay until morning. He loves those times, loves waking up to find her still sleeping in his arms. He loves early morning lovemaking with the light curling in through the curtains. He loves making her breakfast and asking how she slept and what did she dream about. But most days, they can only fit in dinner and dancing before one or both of them have to go. Time doesn't stop in here, and every hour away is an hour that they will later need to account for to Slick and Scratch respectively.

They always wait until the last second, stealing kisses even as they head out the door. She fades away mid-kiss, leaving him with an armful of air. They leave everything for the cleaning woman to take care of. By the time they return, the dishes will be washed and put away, and any spoiled food will be gone.

The only thing that's ever moved are the roses, and Boxcars always takes them home. Droog and Slick roll their eyes and make fun of him for wasting his money on something that's just going to die, and Deuce never quite understands why Boxcars likes flowers so much. But he ignores them and keeps them in his room, hanging them from the rafters and drying them. He collects the petals and keeps them in a box under his bed, and whenever circumstances conspire to keep them apart, he opens the box and fills his room with the sweet scent.

He keeps an eye on the back of the paper and he always turns up on time, no matter what excuses he needs to make in order to meet her. It's dangerous, but a sort of dangerous that he's willing to die or suffer for.

And then the day comes when he walks into the apartment with an armful of groceries and finds Doc Scratch waiting by the window. Boxcar's arms are full, and his deck of cards is in his pocket. Even if he drops everything, he won't be able to draw them in time, to get something from the Wrathtub to deal with the creepy bastard.

"Close the door," He says, the words hanging in Boxcar's mind without echoing through the air.

Boxcars takes not being struck dead in an instant as a sign that maybe they're going to speak this out. And maybe he can at least hit the bastard when he's not looking. He shuts the door and sets the groceries on the counter, keeping his distance from the blank-faced bastard.

"Snowman will not be arriving for your liaison today, or any other day from now on," The Doc's hands are held behind his back, but his pistol hangs by his hip, just waiting to be drawn and fired, "Your relationship was tolerated only because it did not interfere with any of my employer's plans. But your carelessness just endangered my lifetime's work. I will not stand idly by and let a centuries of effort be thrown away for a child."

He doesn't understand at first. Even when his brain begins to wrap itself around the real meaning, it doesn't sink in. Boxcars can't grasp onto it, no matter how he tries. There's just this blank space in his thoughts that refuses to fit itself around the word 'child'.

Scratch continues, approaching Boxcars slowly, and with a menace that cannot be ignored, "Killing you would be the simplest course of events, but she was quite adamant that I not touch you. Her continued participation is the only reason you are not currently splattered across the floor.."

He hears the words but nothing sinks in. His mind still bends around that blank space, trying to fill it in and finding that it can't be filled by anything. Boxcars stares at Doc Scratch, and when he finally speaks, his voice is a whisper, "I have a child."

"There is no child. I've seen to that," Scratch is blunt, and the hole in Boxcar's mind shrinks, a thousand possibilities dying in an instant. He stops in front of Boxcars, one hand coming to rest on his gun,"Your resistance is misguided and foolish. You cannot win against me. I will see to you before you ever lay a hand on me."

The threat means nothing to Boxcars. His mind is fixed on the pinprick hole, the son or daughter that he'll never have, the potential that Doc Scratch has dismissed as if it were nothing but a speck of dust. Boxcars cannot think, cannot function. All he feels is the painful throbbing of his heart. He draws his deck of cards, hefting them in his arms and taking a swing at Scratch, because that is the only thing he can do.

There's a flash of blinding light, and the room pinches and whirls, and Boxcars is standing in the desert, swinging wildly at the air. He stumbles and rights himself, barely keeping his grip on the wrathtub.

Something slams into his shoulder and he stumbles, falling to his knees. He grasps the cards in one hand while the other goes to his shoulder, coming away with blood. The bullet wound burns, but it's a clean hole, the bullet having gone clear through. He tries to stand, and finds himself bowed over by another shot, this one through his side. His carapace cracks, and his guts are flooded with liquid pain. Another clean hole, the bullet perfectly placed to miss his organs while still causing him pain.

Scratch appears in front of him, holding the gun in his hand, "As I said, I would see to you before you laid a hand on me. Your wounds will heal. Let the scars serve as reminders when you feel fool-hardy. The next time we meet, you will die by my hands."

Boxcars closes his eyes when the light appears again. He is left on the floor of the apartment, bleeding out onto the carpet. One hand clutches the bleeding wound in his guts, just holding on tightly to it while he lies on the floor.

He knew it would end one of these days. But he never knew it would end like this. Boxcars never though anything could hurt his badly, or this deeply. He struggles to his knees, focusing on the pain in his shoulder and side. It's better than the other pain, easier to power through and comprehend. Boxcars staggers to the door and heads out of it, making his way through the hall and down the stairs. Their hideout isn't far away. He can make it before he passes out from blood loss. Droog or Slick should find him soon enough.

As he walks, his mind puts together a story to tell them, something convincing. Something that doesn't mention Snowman, or the apartment, or Doc Scratch, or the child that isn't anymore. He focuses on it, adding details to an ambush in his mind as he steps into an alley and makes his way toward the hideout. Boxcars keeps his mind on the story, trying to pretend that there aren't tears silently rolling down his face, trying desperately hard to ignore the horrible sickness lurking in his heart.

In the apartment, the groceries sit out on the counter, food going warm and then beginning to slowly spoil. The roses in the paper bag wait for water that will never come, petals withering and curling in on themselves one by one.


End file.
